In December 2010, Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB), a local youth initiative in the city, contacted Transparent Chennai to see if TC could, in any way, help strengthen a proposal that they were sending to the Chennai Corporation on the need for dustbins and toilets on Elliots and Valmiki beaches. A methodology for data creation was devised that would benefit both organizations. For ROB, it was the creation of spatially precise data that buttressed the need for dustbins and toilets, and for TC, it served as a starting point for infrastructure and pollution mapping of Chennai’s coastline. This blogpost will tell our readers about how the data created helped strengthen ROB’s proposal to the Chennai Corporation.

Dustbins and Toilets on the Beach:

ROB’s campaign, which involves placing dustbins and toilets on the beach as a first step towards a healthier beach environment, led them to a meeting with the Chennai Corporation, a civic body responsible for maintenance of public spaces and amenities in the city among other things. The meeting ended with the corporation suggesting that ROB submit a proposal stating the nature of problem and related demands concerning Chennai’s beaches.

While thrilled at the opportunity to come up with a sound proposal that would put dustbins and toilets on the beach they soon realized that it was not an easy task to create a convincing proposal especially since they were an unregistered organization. The need to make their proposal more persuasive was why they initially contacted TC.

TC and ROB:

At TC, a methodology was devised for obtaining information on the formal and informal uses of Elliots and Valmiki Beaches that would help ROB to: 1. help reinforce the need for dustbins and toilets; 2. provide insight into the most effective locations for the same.

How so? Let us explain by using Elliots beach as an example.

While ROB already had data on the amount of trash along the coastline, this data was repackaged to spatially showcase how dirty the beach was during different days and times. We did this by mapping sites where trash had accumulated on different days to get a spatial sense of the problem. In our study, a trash accumulation site was defined as any area where more than 5 pieces of trash were found together.

These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Monday 20/11/2010

These sites were mapped by ROB volunteers on Sunday 02/01/2011

As you can see, these maps provide a strong spatial representation of the problem of trash on Elliots beach. What’s even better is by overlaying this data with the existing neelmetal dumpsters and government operated dustbins in the area, one can easily see how the present waste management system is inadequate.

Similar representations of informal urine hotspots were mapped and overlaid with information of public toilet facilities in the area to present the need for more toilets.

To help in locating ideal places for trash bins a heat map containing a point density algorithm was used to spatially show the most concentrations of trash thereby showing where trash bins would be most useful.

Example heat map using the trash accumulation data obtained on 20/11/2010

The same methodology was used to stress the need for toilets as well. We hope that these maps will help ROB’s proposal to the Corporation and eventually result in more dustbins and toilets on the beach.

Go to Build A Map feature on our website to explore our Beach Layer! Please do write to us and give us feedback on our methodology.

- Siddharth Hande

My Sunday mornings are normally meant for sleeping in, being lazy, watching TV and eating a late brunch. However, this Sunday was different from others. For starters, I woke up at 5:15am. I then got dressed and made my way to Marina beach to do something much needed – pick up trash!

The Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) led a massive volunteer effort towards cleaning up the 15-km coastal stretch from Marina to Injambakkam this Sunday. CTC is a non-profit volunteer-based organization of nearly 1000 trekking enthusiasts. The group is actively involved in exploring trails, jungles and mountains all over India. CTC organizes 5-8 treks every month and often more than one trek on weekends. Apart from trekking, the group is also passionate about raising environmental and social awareness and organizes several campaigns to clean up and preserve environmentally sensitive areas.

Sunday’s coastal clean up was a sequel to another massive clean up that was held in May 2010. The group’s founder had a vision to make this event the largest beach clean up campaign in Chennai’s recent history. Thus, a single email calling for volunteers caught the attention of hundreds of residents and the media. In a mere few weeks, nearly 1000 volunteers (including me J) signed up to offer 2 hours of their Sunday morning to rid the city’s coastline of garbage.

This was my first interaction with CTC, and I was pleasantly surprised at how organized its volunteers were. The 15-km stretch that we cleaned was divided into 1-km zones, with 2-3 of CTC’s organizers manning each zone. A map indicating pick-up points, beach clean up zones and organizer names was sent out to everyone ahead of time through email. I signed up to meet the group that gathered at the Marina lighthouse. When I got to the beach, I saw a few organizers ready and waiting with gloves and biodegradable garbage bags (sponsored by Biotec). Once the gloves and bags were handed out, my group was divided into two teams– one that picked up larger pieces of trash, such as shoes, gunny bags, large plastic bags, etc, and a second team that picked up smaller pieces such as cigarette butts, small pieces of thermocole, plastic, etc. Since I am afflicted with an obsessive compulsive disorder and love cleaning in detail, I happily opted to join the second group. I spent a good 1.5 hours picking up all kinds of trash (and burning a lot of calories J), much of which was deeply buried in sand. Several of CTC’s photographers captured photographs of the clean up at all of the different zones.

It was really nice to see how passionate all of the volunteers were about cleaning up the beach. There were people of all ages that came out to for the clean up that morning. We also got the attention of several fishermen who lived in the area and people who happened to be taking a stroll at the beach that morning. A few fishermen made some generous contributions to my trash bag and even thanked me, which made me feel proud for doing something worthwhile with my Sunday morning. Together, we collected 800 bags of non-degradable garbage – a commendable attempt at raising environmental awareness.

I hope that the beach clean up has made Chennai’s residents realize the importance of preserving this precious and beautiful ecosystem, and that beach go-ers will now think twice before littering. On behalf of Transparent Chennai, I would like to thank CTC for organizing this amazing campaign. This effort is proof that we, as residents, can work together to make our city a better place to live!

Vaishnavi Narasimhan

Reclaim our beaches is a  youth led movement to restore the sanctity of Chennai’s beaches. It started with a small group of students cleaning up the beach and creating awareness by asking the citizens to own up their garbage and not litter everywhere. On the eve of their first anniversary on Saturday, 18th December 2010, these young environmental activists were really determined to push forth their agenda by something they call ‘in the face clean up’. In the face clean up is an initiative to encourage the residents to keep the beach surroundings clean.

They received  a resounding response of a hundred and fifty plus people. As the ROB volunteers tread their path to clean they saw many people littering the beach area. The volunteers went up to them, picked the waste, gave them a look that made them feel guilty. Seeing this many people from the crowd volunteered to help out in the cleaning and the enthusiasm swept many strangers into becoming friends for a common cause.

ROB has been very active in demanding dustbins and more toilets on the beach as people are often seen polluting the place due to a lack of these basic amenities. The corporation has promised ROB to put the dustbins and toilets on the beach and have asked them for an aesthetically beautiful and financially feasible plan to maintain the beach stretch. The executive engineer and his colleague from the corporation also witnessed the clean up and were impressed. In the end, Mr. Nithyanand a famous environmental journalist, a friend and mentor of ROB, thanked everyone for their time and contribution and inspired the residents to keep the city clean and take this fruitful thought to more people.

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Transparent Chennai recently collaborated with ROB on mapping the infrastructure on Elliots beach. A map showcasing the present infrastructure i.e; ( dustbins, public toilets, vendors etc) will be up on the website soon. A report based on the mapping exercise will also be drafted in due course and sent to the Corporation.

Please write to us with suggestions and feedback, and do join ROB in their beach clean ups. We have beautiful beaches in Chennai and all of us want it clean. Don’t we? For more information: http://letsrob.org/home/

By Roshan Toshniwal, Consultant, Transparent Chennai